United States

The American Way

Criminal acts by corporations in the United States, rather than resulting in arrest are typically managed by regulatory agencies. They can be referred to the federal Department of Justice if the regulatory agency is unable to get the corporation to comply with the regulation. These regulations are designed to control or manage an offending corporation's behavior. Controlling, managing, and punishing corporate crime has been a difficult challenge in American history. During first major federal attempt, the 1898 Sherman Antitrust Act, passed to prevent monopolies from fixing prices on goods sold to consumers, the Department of Justice only filed 9 cases, and only 16 in the first twelve years. No violators were imprisoned until 1921. During the first 50 years of the law, of 252 prosecutions only 24 perpetrators went to prison. Eleven of these were businessmen and the remainder were union leaders who were being controlled by the laws sponsored by the elite controlled politicians.

Before cases are brought to criminal court, federal and sometimes state regulatory agencies may manage the company through an administrative hearing and a consent decree asking the company to stop its behavior. Subsequently, the company may offer to clean up its mess or perform restitution to victims. Part of the problem in trying to make corporations accountable for the harms that they commit is that a Supreme Court decision in 1886, in Santa Clara v. California, declared that a private corporation is a natural person. Thus, they have the same rights as a natural person under the law to freedom of speech, to sue, and to borrow money but unfortunately, finding culpable parties in white-collar crime cases is often quite difficult.

Harm done to workers by corporations in their work environment has been a common white-collar offense in American industry. These offenses ranged from knowingly exposing coal miners to harmful coal dust and lying about it, to improperly locked employee-exit doors. One example of corporate negligence occurred in 1991 at the Imperial Food Products chicken-processing plant fire in[Page 839] Hamlet, North Carolina, where 25 employees were killed. The employees died because company management had locked the exit doors, allegedly due to suspected employee theft. However, additional problems included the fact the building was over 100 years old and had an inadequate sprinkler system, too few windows, and the plant had not been inspected by the state regulatory agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in its 11 years of operation. In the end, the state hired new inspectors and legislated 12 new workplace safety laws. The state Labor Department fined the company $800,000 and the owner, plant manager, and his son were indicted on 25 counts of manslaughter. Eventually the owner, Emmett Roe, pleaded guilty to all 25 counts and was sentenced to almost 20 years; but was eligible for parole in less than 3 years.

...